No One's Gonna Love You
by Lila2
Summary: Breaking up is hard to do, especially when the whole world is watching.


**Title:** "No One's Gonna Love You"

**Author: **Lila

**Rating: **PG-13

**Character/Pairing: **Nate

**Spoiler: **Blink and you'll miss them spoilers for "Desperately Seeking Serena"

**Length: **one-shot

**Summary: **Breaking up is hard to do, especially when the whole world is watching.

**Disclaimer: **Not mine, just borrowing them for a few paragraphs.

**Author's Note:** This originally started out as Chuck/Blair/Nate fic, but Nate's voice just took over and demanded it's own story so the C/B/N is on hold for a bit. Title, breaks, and cut courtesy of Band of Horses. Enjoy.

* * *

**I. It's looking like a limb torn off…**

The morning after, you wake up with a crick in your neck and a crease running the length of your cheek. You blink because it takes you a moment to realize where you are. It's a Thursday morning and you're in your own bed, in your own bedroom, and you're alone.

You close your eyes and when you open them you expect fine leather sticking to your cheek, your shoulders wedged in the crack between cushions, a Harvard Business School blanket tossed casually over your legs. You're not ready for the Egyptian cotton caressing your skin, the pillow-top beneath your back, your own ceiling staring back at you.

You close your eyes again because you're convinced it's just a dream because you can't remember the last time you woke in your own bed. It's only when you realize you're the only one breathing that you know you're fully awake.

--

You don't keep your eyes open on the way to school. There's no limo taking you to St. Jude's in style, no mimosa icing your tongue, no idle chatter, no smoky haze that stings your eyes but soothes your brain. You decide it's better with your eyes closed.

With your eyes closed, you can pretend yesterday never happened.

With your eyes closed, you still have a girlfriend and a best friend and a life that resembles something you want to live.

With your eyes closed, you can picture Chuck's face without wanting to cry.

--

The morning after, you open your eyes on the crosstown bus to a text from Gossip Girl. It reads "Split of the Century" and there's a photo to go along with it. You catch a flash of dark hair before you slam the phone closed.

It isn't a photo of you and Blair.

--

**II. We are the ever living ghost of what was…**

The plebes – vocab word #17, a common person, someone of no regard– choose sides in the divorce.

You have the starting forward slot on varsity lacrosse but Chuck has the connections and the dealers, and you land the jocks but he keeps everyone else.

In the aftermath, you don't even have anyone to each lunch with. You used to spend the hour with Chuck, nibbling on a sandwich and listening to the low hum of his voice in your ear, "Two, four, two, zero. Who let that girl our in public? Sixteen minimum!"

The lacrosse team has a routine of their own, but you don't know it yet. Class lets out and the minions scatter and you're standing in the courtyard with your check card pressed against a clammy palm.

In the aftermath, Chuck is off somewhere guessing girls' dress sizes and you're on your own. It's a new feeling. You're not sure you like it.

--

Jenny spots you and waves, and you spend your lunch hour on the steps of the Met while the girls eat salads and rag on Blair. You're barely listening, the words slipping in one ear and out the other, because you can't seem to stop waiting for a plaid jacket to walk by in a cloud of smoke. It doesn't happen.

The next morning Chuck does his own thing and you still haven't figured out where the lacrosse teams disappears to and Jenny beckons.

You decline the invitation.

Blair destroyed you, but you've spent too long loving her or trying to love her or thinking you should love her to truly hate her. You can't think of her without wanting to hit someone, but you can't listen to those girls tear hear apart when they never truly knew her.

The next morning, you catch up with Keenan Montgomery before first period, and after fifth you're waiting at the pushcart on 84th with your cash ready. Blair might have destroyed you, but you're not an Archibald for nothing.

You put yourself back together one piece at a time.

--

Turns out, you don't get to keep Serena either. You grab her sleeve in the courtyard one morning between gym and history, and the wool of her blazer catches on your calloused fingers. "Hey," you whisper. "Can I talk to you?"

She gives you the courtesy of stopping, but her face is twisted in confusion when she turns to face you. "Nate, I can't."

You don't know why. Blair's taking a holiday from school, ensconced in Capri or France or the depths of her blue bedroom, and Serena hates Chuck more than you do. "Why?" you ask and hate how desperate your voice sounds, but you don't have a choice – there's no one else to talk to.

"Nate, you know why," she says. "It's not fair to Blair. I promised to hold her up. I can't do the same for you right now."

"This has nothing to do with Blair," you say breathlessly because it's the truth and it's foreign and you have to take a moment to digest because it's a new experience for you. "I really need you right now."

She has the decency to look guilty, but her jaw sets and her eyes steel with resolve. "Nate…" she trails off and in the distance you hear the click of a cameraphone fueling Gossip Girl's fire. "I'm sorry, but Blair needs me more."

You can't say you're surprised. You already know that Blair never needed you at all.

--

Jenny spots the photos and confronts you later that afternoon. You assume it's about Serena, but it turns out she's "worried" about you. "You seem really sad, Nate," she says. "If you ever want to talk just call, okay?" There's a glint in her eye that didn't used to be there, and you have to wonder if she cares at all or wants to present you to Penelope on a silver platter of broken hearts.

You're also fairly certain you can't say a word to her that won't end up in a blog for all the world to see, but you smile and shake your head and tell her you're fine.

It's a lie, but at least it's something you're used to.

--

**III. Things start splitting at the seams...**

Blair takes back her throne, and the crown Jenny stole fits her like a glove. She doesn't have a prince to reign alongside, but she doesn't seem to mind. When you see her next in C-B/St' J's AP Euro, she volunteers for a report on Elizabeth I because she doesn't need a man.

Two days later she brushes by on her way to the steps, fruit cup in hand and head held high, and it takes a moment to even recognize her.

--

You like Brooklyn. You like the greasy Greek diner and the pasticcio Costas has waiting very time you visit your father in rehab.

You like that when you walk through the door, Karissa and the other waitresses greet you by name, and they know who you are because they enjoy your business and your company, not because of a blog.

You like walking on the promenade and watching the lights twinkle across the river and feeling like you've escaped when you're still in the same city.

--

Your mother thaws for an hour, dumps the pills and the booze, and tells you she's worried about you. "You're never home anymore, Nate," she says.

You tell another lie and insist that you're fine. You refrain from telling her that the Upper East Side hasn't been home since the moment you started dating Blair and saw the future reflected in your father's eyes.

The Vanderbilt diamond flashes on her finger as she brushes her hair – ash blonde, flat ironed, falling just past her shoulders – behind her ear. "Nate, we need to be a family," she says. "Your father needs us."

The diamond blinds you into submission with memories of what used to be. "Okay," you whisper. "Next week, I'll come right home."

Your promise is mostly truth but still part lie. You skip the diner and the promenade and Karissa's smile, but you take the bridge home.

The lights beckon as you make your way back to what you know, but your feet drag as you pass from Williamsburg to the Lower East Side.

--

**IV. I never want to hear you say that you'd be better off…**

Despite your family's tumble from grace, your mother is still friendly with Lily Van der Woodsen, soon to be Bass, and all three of you are invited to the rehearsal dinner. To say you don't want to go would be an understatement. Serena will be there and you like her, but Eric has defected to Chuck's side and you still can't look at Blair head-on without wanting to hit something, but you made a promise and you're determined to honor it.

It's your father's first time out of rehab, and your mother wants to present the Archibalds as a family unit. It's just for one night before a towncar will whisk him back to Brooklyn and its escape, and you hate what your father's done and you hate what he did to your family, but you can't hate him anymore than you can hate Blair.

Your tie feels like a clamp around your throat as the car approaches the Palace, and you wonder if it's how Chuck felt when you threw him down on the hood of his own limo and threatened to kill him for taking something that should have been yours.

It only gets tighter as you walk into the Madison Room and you can see both of them across the restaurant, holding court in separate corners. Chuck sees you and his expression tightens, fingers dropping from the waist of the blonde he's escorting for the night; Blair frowns with her eyes and makes a beeline for Serena; you gulp your scotch even though you're a vodka man.

--

You make small talk with your parents' circle, chatting about Dartmouth (because it's what your dad wants) and USC (because it's what you want) and the lacrosse camp you're planning on attending over the summer. Their children are stars in the web Gossip Girl spins, but the adults are blissfully unaware and it's nice to talk about something, anything, besides the girlfriend and the best friend that ripped your heart out.

You dance with Serena, because she belongs to the Van der Woodsen's for a night, and ignore the way Blair's eyes feel like they're burning holes in your back because after what she did, jealously is an emotion she can't wear any longer. Serena feels good in your arms, more natural than Blair, and it's a little too easy to fall back into old habits. Your hand slips a little, clinging too low on her waist, and it's over practically when it began because Brooklyn is moving in and taking back what's his and you're left alone on the dance floor while love stories go on without you.

This time, it's Chuck's laughter mocking you from behind your back.

--

Chuck drinks too much and has to be carried off to bed. It's Eric who notices, and he enlists your help in getting him upstairs.

You decline. "We're not exactly speaking these days," you say by means of explanation, but Eric shrugs his shoulders in a way that's so clearly Chuck you can't help but smirk.

"Look, Bart can't know about this," Eric says as he digs an arm under Chuck's shoulders and tries to hoist him up. "You know what he'll do if he finds out." You do know and it hurts to remember. You watch the two of them, would be brothers, and it's like falling years in the past, into another night of drinking and barhopping and bagging every blonde in sight, and putting Chuck to bed while you guard his dreams from the couch.

You can't help yourself from slipping your arm under his other shoulder. "On my count," you tell Eric and together you drag Chuck to his feet.

The suite is as you left it, except for the clothes piled on the couch. You hate that it hurts to see you've been replaced so quickly with something of such little consequence.

You dump Chuck into bed and pull off his shoes and tuck the covers under his chin. You give Eric instructions, but he shirks his duty. "I can't stay here," he says. "My mom's only rule is that I have to spend every night in my own bed." You're not surprised; Lily has always been a better parent than her children give her credit for. "Can you stay?" he asks. "I'll be back first thing in the morning, but I don't think he should be alone right now."

It's the last thing you want, but too easy a trap not to fall into old habits. He's been your best friend for ten years; you can't hate him anymore than you hate Blair. "Yeah," you sigh. "I can stay."

--

The morning after, you wake with a crick in your neck and leather sticking to your cheek. You blink, to see if it's real, because it's like coming home.

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